The Five Levels of Attachment: Toltec Wisdom for the Modern World
4.5/5
()
About this ebook
Do you hold your beliefs? Or do your beliefs hold you?
In this groundbreaking work, don Miguel Ruiz Jr. writes that we have all unwittingly made agreements about how we think we should live our lives and what we believe our personal truths are.
But what most of us do not realize is that each one of these agreements represents an attachment, a limiting filter on who we think we are, and what our future could hold.
The Five Levels of Attachment provides you with a measuring stick to understanding how tied you are to any belief, idea, or opinion. Each level represents how controlled you are by your own particular way of thinking.
Armed with the awareness of which beliefs and ideas you are most attached to, you can better navigate the recurring situations in your life that cause you suffering, release any unhealthy beliefs that are no longer serving you, and create a future that is in alignment with your true and authentic self.
Don Miguel Ruiz
Don Miguel Ruiz es el autor de varios best sellers internacionales, entre los que se incluyen The Four Agreements (más de siete años en la lista de best sellers del New York Times) The Mastery of Love, The Voice of Knowledge y es coescritor de The Fifth Agreement. Ruiz ha dedicado su vida a compartir la sabiduría de los antiguos toltecas a través de sus libros, conferencias y viajes a sitios sagrados alrededor del mundo.
Read more from Don Miguel Ruiz
The Mastery of Self: A Toltec Guide to Personal Freedom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5don Miguel Ruiz's Little Book of Wisdom: The Essential Teachings Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Warrior Goddess Training: Become the Woman You Are Meant to Be Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Seven Secrets to Healthy, Happy Relationships Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wisdom of the Shamans: What the Ancient Masters Can Teach Us about Love and Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Toltec Art of Life and Death: A Story of Discovery Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Medicine Bag: Shamanic Rituals & Ceremonies for Personal Transformation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Shamanic Power Animals: Embracing the Teachings of Our Non-Human Friends Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Love Fearlessly: The Soulmate Within Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Shaman's Path to Freedom: A Toltec Wisdom Book Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Toltec Way: A Guide to Personal Transformation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Light: A Book of Wisdom: How to Lead an Enlightened Life Filled with Love, Joy, Truth, and Beauty Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beyond Fear: A Toltec Guide to Freedom and Joy: The Teachings of Don Miguel Ruiz Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Related to The Five Levels of Attachment
Related ebooks
The Medicine Bag: Shamanic Rituals & Ceremonies for Personal Transformation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Toltec Way: A Guide to Personal Transformation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Toltec Art of Life and Death: A Story of Discovery Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Three Questions: How to Discover and Master the Power Within You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Fear: A Toltec Guide to Freedom and Joy: The Teachings of Don Miguel Ruiz Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Mastery of Life: A Toltec Guide to Personal Freedom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Love Fearlessly: The Soulmate Within Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Toltec Secret to Happiness: Create Lasting Change with the Power of Belief Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shamanic Power Animals: Embracing the Teachings of Our Non-Human Friends Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mastery of Awareness: Living the Agreements Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gift of Forgiveness: A Magical Encounter with don Miguel Ruiz Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Light: A Book of Wisdom: How to Lead an Enlightened Life Filled with Love, Joy, Truth, and Beauty Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Everything Toltec Wisdom Book: A Complete Guide to the Ancient Wisdoms Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Shaman's Path to Freedom: A Toltec Wisdom Book Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Summary of The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book) by Don Miguel Ruiz Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFear-Less: The Art of Using Your Anxiety to Your Advantage Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Warrior Heart Practice: A Simple Process to Transform Confusion into Clarity and Pain into Peace (A Warrior Goddess Book) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Seat of the Soul Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Shadow Effect: Illuminating the Hidden Power of Your True Self Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Four Sacred Secrets: For Love and Prosperity, A Guide to Living in a Beautiful State Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Warrior Goddess Way: Claiming the Woman You Are Destined to Be Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Heart of the Soul: Emotional Awareness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Little Book on Big Freedom: Discover the Four Elements of Transformation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWarrior Goddess Wisdom: Daily Inspiration for Women Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNotes from the Universe: New Perspectives from an Old Friend Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Your Sacred Self: Making the Decision to Be Free Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Power of the Heart: Finding Your True Purpose in Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Book of Soul: 52 Paths to Living What Matters Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Personal Growth For You
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Big Book of 30-Day Challenges: 60 Habit-Forming Programs to Live an Infinitely Better Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Four Loves Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Think and Grow Rich (Illustrated Edition): With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Personal Workbook Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Undistracted: Capture Your Purpose. Rediscover Your Joy. Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, Third Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, Second Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and into Your Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Changes That Heal: Four Practical Steps to a Happier, Healthier You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Girl, Stop Apologizing: A Shame-Free Plan for Embracing and Achieving Your Goals Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Self-Care for People with ADHD: 100+ Ways to Recharge, De-Stress, and Prioritize You! Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The ADHD Effect on Marriage: Understand and Rebuild Your Relationship in Six Steps Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 5 Second Rule: Transform Your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-outs, and Triggers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Five Levels of Attachment
31 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Easy to follow and understand. He has a great way of getting to the point. Loved this book. Thanks
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An excellent book that lays a foundation of our natural reactions & Responses as we go through the us and downs of life. The simple language used in the book is easy to understand and by implementing the suggestions one can help manage the relationships better and lead a very balanced life.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I cannot open it. Not able to read it. Disappointed
Book preview
The Five Levels of Attachment - Don Miguel Ruiz
Introduction
Everything is made of light. We are the stars; and the stars are us. When we see this, all of our senses are truly open and there is no need to interpret the world. In this moment, our full, unlimited potential is available to us. There is nothing blocking our way. . . .
—DON MIGUEL RUIZ, THE FOUR AGREEMENTS
My father, don Miguel Ruiz, a teacher and retired medical doctor, spent many thoughtful and transformative years interpreting our Toltec traditions to fit the world we live in today. The Toltecs were great women and men of knowledge who lived thousands of years ago in the area that is now known as south central Mexico. In the Nahuatl language, Toltec means artist,
and according to our teachings, the canvas for our art is life itself. I learned about the Toltec way of life through the oral traditions of my family, who (according to my paternal great-great-grandfather, don Exiquio) are direct descendants of the Toltecs of the Eagle Knight lineage. This knowledge came to me by way of my grandmother, Madre Sarita.
We call ourselves Toltecs not just because of our lineage, but because we are artists. Life is the canvas of our art, and the work of our tradition is to teach the life lessons that will help us create our masterpiece.
The Toltec tradition is not a religion, but rather a way of life in which our great masterpiece is living in happiness and love. It embraces spirit while honoring the great many masters of all of the world's traditions. The whole point of all this work is to be happy, to enjoy life, and to enjoy the relationships with the people we love the most, starting with oneself.
I began my apprenticeship into my family's tradition in San Diego, California, when I was fourteen years old. My seventy-nine-year-old grandmother, Madre Sarita, was my teacher and the spiritual head of our family. She was a curandera, a faith healer who helped people in her small temple in Barrio Logan, a neighborhood in San Diego, with the power of her faith in God and love. Since my father was a medical doctor, the juxtaposition of the two forms of healing allowed me to see our tradition through different points of view.
I appreciated the power of my grandmother's words long before I had a firm grasp of their meaning. I also saw things that others could only describe as magic
transformed into everyday happenings; miraculous healings were the norm for Madre Sarita. I still felt a strong pull from the outside world, though—the allure of hanging out with my friends, of being like everyone else. I moved back and forth between the Toltec world of my family and the mainstream world of school and friends, constantly struggling to find a way to combine my experiences and yet keep them separate at the same time.
Though she spoke no English, my grandmother gave sermons and lectures across the country. My apprenticeship began with translating my grandmother's lectures from Spanish to English. For many years, I awkwardly stumbled over her words, and my grandmother would just look at me and laugh.
One day she asked me if I knew why I stumbled. I had all sorts of answers: you are speaking too quickly, you don't give me a chance to catch up, some words don't have a direct translation. . . . She just looked at me silently for a few moments and then asked, Are you using knowledge, or is knowledge using you?
I looked at her blankly. She continued, "When you translate, you try to express my words through what you already know, what you think is true. You do not hear me; you hear yourself. Imagine doing the same thing every single moment in life. If you are looking through life and translating it as it goes along, you will miss out on living it. But if you learn to listen to life, you will always be able to express the words as they come. Your knowledge has to become a tool you will use to guide you through life but that can also be put aside. Do not let knowledge translate everything you experience."
I nodded in response, but it didn't dawn on me until many years later what my grandmother was truly talking about. Throughout life, we constantly narrate, or commentate on, everything we do, say, see, touch, smell, taste, and hear. As natural storytellers, we continuously keep the plot moving forward, sometimes missing millions of subplots that are developing on their own. It is like taking a sip of wine and saying, It's a bit dry; it has definitely aged well, but I can taste the bark. I've had better.
Instead of simply experiencing the joy and flavors of the wine, we are analyzing the flavor, trying to break it down and fit it into a context and language we already know. In doing this, we miss out on much of the actual experience.
This is a simple example of how we narrate life— explaining it, but, more importantly, justifying and judging it. Instead of taking an experience for what it is, we create a story to make it fit our beliefs. During Madre Sarita's talks, I had to completely shut down my thoughts, because if my mind's commentary got in the way I would miss out on her message. With this simple process, my grandmother showed me that if we only see the world through the filters of our preconceptions, we are going to miss out on actually living. After much practice, I eventually learned to close my eyes, shut out the world that existed outside my head, and translate every single word she said accurately.
Seeing beyond our filters—our accumulated knowledge and beliefs—does not always come naturally. We have spent years growing attached to them in various degrees, and they feel safe. Whatever we become attached to can begin to shape our future experiences and limit our perception of what exists outside our vocabulary. Like blinders on a horse, our attached beliefs limit our vision, and this in turn limits our perceived direction in life. The stronger our level of attachment, the less we can see.
Think about your set of attached beliefs as a unique melody repeating itself in your mind. In a way, we are constantly trying to force our melody—the one we have become accustomed to hearing—onto other melodies, without realizing that often the melody is not our own, and perhaps it's not even the one we want to be playing. If we continue playing only what we know, never opening ourselves to listen to the other songs flowing around us, we are letting our attachment to our particular melody control us. Instead, choose to listen to other melodies playing. Perhaps you will contribute to them, adding a harmony or a bass line and just seeing where the music takes you. By letting go of your attachment to what you think the melody should be, you open yourself to the potential to create a unique and beautiful song of your own composition or a collaboration that can be shared with others.
In this book, I will teach you the Five Levels of Attachment. They are guideposts for gauging how attached you are to your own point of view, as well as how open you are to other opinions and possibilities. As the level of attachment increases, one's identity, the who I am,
becomes more directly linked with knowledge, or the what I know.
Knowledge and the information we perceive are distorted and corrupted by our narrators—the voices of our thoughts that debate the rightness or wrongness of every action we take and every thought we have. When we believe in something so strongly that we lose the awareness of our Authentic Self within the stories and comments of our internal narrators, we are allowing our preconceptions to make our decisions for us. Therefore, it is important to be aware of where we are on the scale of attachment with any particular belief. With awareness, we can regain the power to make our own decisions.
It is my hope that you will engage this book to measure how attached you are to various beliefs and ideas in your life that create your reality, your Personal Dream, and contribute to our collective reality and the Dream of the Planet. Only with this deeper awareness of yourself are you truly free to pursue your passion and experience your full potential. The choice is up to you!
CHAPTER 1
An Exploration of Perception and Potential
Our point of view creates our reality. When we are stuck in our beliefs, our reality becomes rigid, stagnant, and oppressive. We become bound to our attachments because we have lost our ability to recognize that we have a choice to be free of them.
When we look at ourselves in the mirror, we often hear a narrative in our mind of what we see, a definition of self in the form of an identity that is based on our agreements
—the thoughts and beliefs we have said yes to. This identity stems from ideological beliefs that have come to us over a period of time from our family, culture, religion, education, friends, and beyond, and these beliefs are encapsulated into a single system that is represented in the reflected image of a physical living being—in my case, a living being named Miguel Ruiz Jr., with a point of view that is